Study Finds 12% of Internet Users Fall for Spam
Study Finds 12% of Internet Users Fall for Spam
Posted 07/16/2009 at 6:06am
| by Paul Lilly
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Ever wonder why your inbox gets inundated with spam on a regular basis, even though you've never once clicked on a solicitation to enlarge your favorite body part? The answer is simple - while you might not be falling for the unwelcome sales pitches, there are plenty of others who are.
According to a new study by the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), 12 percent of Internet users have wanted to pay for a product or service advertised by email. To come up with that number, the MAAWG interviewed 800 U.S. residents by phone and Internet without an email address managed by a corporate IT staff. Two-thirds claimed to be very or somewhat experienced with Internet security, while most of the participants used a spam filter.
Even though 82 percent said they were aware of bots and botnets, less than half (48 percent) said they never click on spam email.
"Although a small percentage of the computing population, these numbers still earn a significant enough return on investment to support a booming spam-driving underground economy," wrote MAAWG.
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Kira Shannen
July 27, 2011 at 1:21pm
12% is a pretty great number. I guess that from all those messages, you happen to find at least one that fits your current needs and just out of curiosity you click on it. I'm usually interested in spam security blogs, so I believe that I would click on an email with this content, should I receive one. In other cases, I would just ignore them.
Wildebeast
July 16, 2009 at 7:49pm
My dad found a solution to SPAM... He blocked ALL e-mails from Yahoo hotmail accounts.
Of course, one of my brothers and myself use Yahoo hotmail for our primary addresses. (Another brother uses it as his back-up account) ... So the second part of my dad's solution was a Yahoo hotmail account, for Him! :D
(Yes, IMO, he accomplished almost nothing.)
There's got to be some kind of solution for the not-tech-savvy people though, that doesn't include paying a software company an idiotic amount. It's SPAM --it frequently lists the "return address" as the same as the received address. (That's not something that you need to pay $10/month for software to sort out...)
I guess this crap is part of why Macs sell...
kevjohn
July 16, 2009 at 9:25am
Of course people fall for SPAM. Why else would they keep doing it if it didn't work?
Surprised that the rate is that high though. But I figured even at 2-3% of idio... err, people clicking on it the spammers would be coming out way ahead.
lunchbox73
July 16, 2009 at 9:23am
I'm more shocked that people actually eat SPAM. Have you ever tried that stuff?? Ew....
Digital-Storm
July 16, 2009 at 7:40am
You have to remember that 12% of the internet users are retarded too.
gatorXXX
July 16, 2009 at 8:23am
That must be your favorite word....retarded....
They are not retarded, but simply PC and internet challenged. Remember, you were one of those..."retarded" people when you first started to use a PC.
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